By artificial selection I mean all conscious and purposive arrangements between men and women which have in view character of offspring. This is opposed to natural selection which is merely instinctive unteleological union with one of the opposite sex as impelled by animal passion or romantic love. All sexual union among the lower animals is by natural selection; they do not forecast consequences, and by conforming to known laws determine consequences. Among the lower races of men natural selection is the sole or at least dominant factor in marital matters, but as civilisation advances artificial selection becomes a more and more powerful element. A truly thoughtful and intelligent man in our day in view of marriage will most carefully consider his own life history and that of his parents and ancestors, and also that of his intended partner and her ancestors, as to physical or mental disease, which might be handed down to the issue of the proposed union. He would not, for instance, marry into a family which has a tendency to consumption or insanity, for this would be a crime against his possible descendants. Further, this growth of artificial selection with the progress of society is manifest not only as regards individual action but by state regulation. Even in barbarous states it soon becomes evident to the leaders that if strong healthy men are to be had to defend and maintain the nation, strict attention must be paid to the character of those who marry. In Sparta and other ancient states this principle was recognised, and modern governments seek in many more or less indirect ways to encourage marriage between the most fit, so that good citizens and warriors may be raised up to serve the state. All this regulation of marriage by either individual or state action which looks to the character of offspring I term artificial selection. In the evolution of man as a rational animal artificial selection will more and more prevail, and human breeding will become a well defined art. Man is always artificial,[8] and it is his goal to become in all his life unnatural and thoroughly artful. There can ultimately be no _laissez-faire_ policy as to marriage or any other institution. The history of marriage is the history of the gradual retirement of natural selection; but art has come in here more slowly than in other relations of life owing to tremendous conservatism and the power of human passion. But the time has now come when man must more than ever before attend by artificial selection—that is, purposed care—to the perpetuation of the species in the line of its true advancement, spiritual achievement. I do not now see how the necessity of artificial selection can be gainsaid by any one who takes a broad view of the evolution of the race.